Machine Gun Kelly recently opened up about his public feud with Slipknot’s Corey Taylor. He explained what really happened between them and defended his response during an appearance on the Garza Podcast.
The rapper addressed the controversy directly. He compared the situation to being physically attacked and having to defend himself.
“You bring up the Corey Taylor issue and it’s like what do you do if someone punches you in the face? That’s what happened. So I got punched in the face and I punched back and that’s crazy? That’s what I did,” Machine Gun Kelly said.
He also revealed how the feud affected his friendship with Slipknot’s Sid Wilson. He provided context about the original collaboration attempt.
“Look Sid from Slipknot was a good friend of mine for many many years before any of that. I was bummed that he and I’s friendship got fractured through that. But now me and Sid are back cool. And Corey and I haven’t had a chance to speak but I’ve seen him in interviews kind of be like, ‘Yeah, I mean bro we were both tripping,'” he continued.
Machine Gun Kelly explained that the conflict began when he invited Taylor to collaborate on his album “Tickets to My Downfall.”
“I mean look, I don’t have any remorse for how it started. I’m a fan of him. I asked you to get on the record. He was originally on Tickets to My Downfall. As a fan of him, I said, ‘Oh, I think it would be really cool to see, you know, you do this type of verse on this song as a as a fan.’ It was called Can’t Look Back and it’s on the deluxe version. I think he was just like, ‘Oh, that’s not what I want to do.’ Okay, cool. I respect that. That’s all good,” he said.
The artist expressed his disappointment when Taylor later criticized him publicly after his album’s success.
“And then to go on and see after the album comes out and has a success to see somebody that I looked up to shitting on me. Like I said, it’s a punch in the face. What are you going to do? You punch back. I’m throwing my hands. So am I a fan of Slipknot? 100%. I appreciate what happened and am I going to defend myself and show my generation and the generations after us that like you don’t have to kiss the ring if there’s disrespect behind it? F*ck yeah,” he concluded.
This recent interview provides new insight into one of rock music’s most talked-about feuds. The conflict escalated publicly in 2021 and involved social media exchanges, onstage confrontations, and conflicting accounts from both artists.
Far Out Magazine reported that the feud originated during the recording sessions for MGK’s 2020 pop-punk album “Tickets to My Downfall.” Taylor was initially invited to contribute a guest verse to the track “Can’t Look Back.” However, the collaboration fell through when Taylor rejected the track, citing his dislike of having others “write” for him, as evidenced by email receipts he later shared publicly.
The conflict remained private until February 2021. Loudwire documented that Taylor made indirect criticisms about “new rock” artists during a Cutter’s Rockcast interview, stating he hated “all new rock, for the most part” and referring to “artists who failed in one genre and decided to go rock.” MGK interpreted these comments as a direct attack on his transition from rap to pop-punk.
The feud reached its peak during Riot Fest 2021 in Chicago, where MGK publicly called out Slipknot from the stage. Metal Injection noted that MGK told the crowd, “Hey, you all know what I’m really happy that I’m not doing? Being 50 years old wearing a fucking weird mask on a fucking stage, talking shit,” before mockingly asking about candy preferences. The incident sparked a Twitter war between the two artists, with both sharing their versions of events and Taylor posting email screenshots as proof of his side of the story.
By 2022, MGK had begun to express regret about how the situation unfolded. In his Hulu documentary “Life in Pink,” he called the feud “unfortunate” and admitted that “both of us let our egos get in the way.” He suggested he “could have handled it differently” and “should have just picked up the phone” instead of escalating the conflict publicly.
